Labour's constituencies 'likely to have faster broadband'

Published: 22nd Jun 2016

New data from information website ThinkBroadband reveals constituencies led by the Labour Party have faster broadband compared to those controlled by other parties.

Of the top 90 region, where 90 per cent or more of homes and businesses have speeds of 30 Mbps or above, 16 are held by Labour. Conversely, 17 of the bottom 30 constituencies, with less than 50 per cent having access to super-fast speeds, are run by Conservative councils.

The Liberal Democrats control a similar number of areas at both ends of the rankings, with five at the top and eight at the bottom, reports the BBC.

Andrew Ferguson, founder of ThinkBroadband, told the public-service broadcaster: "It is interesting that so many Labour seats are towards the top end of the chart. A lot of this is because Labour seats tend to be in urban areas while Conservative ones tend to control more rural seats."

The map produced by Mr Ferguson's website looks at connectivity across all 650 of the UK's constituencies and throws up massive contrasts between regions that are within close proximity to each other.

For example, Carmarthen West in Wales has 33 per cent of premises with super-fast speeds, compared with just 9.5 per cent for neighbouring constituency Carmarthen East.

In Hull, many areas have low levels of coverage, despite much of the network being controlled by Kingston Communications, which is offering homes extremely fast fibre-to-the-home technology.

"Kingston Communications has done a lot of fibre-to-the-home broadband, but that technology is slower to roll out and so the total coverage is less," explained Mr Ferguson.

He also pointed out that the map is not a comment on the political parties themselves and should not be used to draw conclusions about which is better when it comes to broadband policies.